When you’re onboarding a new copywriting client — whether you work for yourself, or an agency — asking lots of question is the key to success.

Sure, that means that you’ll be spending an hour (or more) on the phone. But just as you wouldn’t enter a marriage without a pretty solid “getting to know you” process, you shouldn’t start writing without a solid customer interview under your belt.

After all, how can you write specific, action-oriented content if you don’t have any specific information?

Here are 52 of my favorite questions to ask a new copywriting client – enjoy!

Important: Ask these questions after your client has signed on the bottom line. Although you may touch on some of these topics during the sales phase, it’s best to save the “meat” of your questions for the kick-off client call.

Reporting/set-up questions

Can I review your analytics?

Do you have any customer persona documents? Can I see them?

Do you have a style guide?

Can I see reports outlining your SEO/content marketing success, to date?

How do we measure success? Conversions? Page positions? Social media love?

Which social media platforms are working for you?

What is your per-page keyphrase strategy?

How did you arrive at your keyphrase choices?

Do you need me to create the strategy and research the keyphrases?

How important is it for you to position for a particular keyphrase? If it is a competitive keyphrase, are you prepared to spend the time (and budget) to make this happen?

What’s your one thing that drives most of your current content marketing success?

What tools/platforms do you use (SEMrush? BuzzSumo? Trello?)

Marketing questions

Who is your online competition? Why would you consider them “competition?”

What is your unique sales proposition?

Why should a prospect purchase from you rather than your competition?

What are your company benefit statements?

What content approach has worked in the past?

What has not worked?

Do you like your site’s “voice?” (how it reads and sounds.)

If not, what’s an example of what you would prefer?

How do you follow up with prospects?

How do you follow up with current clients?

Can I see your other marketing materials (autoresponder emails, print materials, etc.)

Are there any keyphrases that you’re not currently positioning for, and you want to gain a stronger position?

How do you currently promote new content (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)

Who is your “perfect customer (s)”?

What benefit statements are important to those customers?

What customer profile would not be a good fit for your business?

Can I review your customer testimonials (or better yet, can I chat with a few of your happy clients?).

Has your company won any awards? Can I see the documentation?

What are the most common questions that customer service answers? How do they answer them?

Can I talk to your best salesperson to get his/her perspective?

What are the most common objections to overcome?

Has your product/service been featured in a book, endorsed by an organization, etc.

Thanks, Jen. You’re right – I’ve had clients ask, “OK, how long is this going to take” when I tell them about the interview process. But every time I do it, I learn SO much more than if I just sent over a list of questions via email. And the client’s copy is always better for it, too. 🙂

This is a really great breakdown of every vital base that should be covered when beginning to tackle any kind of SEO-centered project. I don’t think that many people stop to realize that SEO strategies encompass so much more than merely copying and pasting keywords into a document; really, there’s a method to the madness, and asking the right questions of your client can absolutely help you get on the same page, strategy-wise, in the hopes of building up the strongest search engine friendly content possible.

Awesome list. Good copywriters will definitely seek out answers to these and other questions for the benefit of the client and the success of the copy. You really can’t do the job well if you don’t have a solid body of info. Thanks for this post!

Great list, but I’ve found that bombarding the client with questions at the beginning can be a huge turn-off. Most people come to me with two questions: What do you charge? and How fast can you get it done? Only once we’ve gotten those out of the way do I proceed with my own questions … and then cautiously.

I completely agree that you wouldn’t ask a lot of these questions during the prospect phase. At that point, you’re more trying to feel each other out and establishing rapport. Once the client signs on the dotted line, then it’s more appropriate to ask a lot of questions. 🙂

– What offers have you tested, and what have been the results for each

I’m focused on getting the response, so no matter what copy I’m writing, I’m always thinking about the next step I want the prospect to take — and what offer is going to motivate him or her to take that step.

– What is the normal sales process that you go through to get a client

I need to understand the logical steps in their sales process, so my copy (and offers) can complement (or replicate) that process.

– can I talk to your best salesperson

The company’s best salesperson typically knows prospects’ hot buttons, and what benefits of the company’s solution gets prospects most interested. Many times, Sales knows more about “why customers buy from you” than Marketing. Also, for an industry I’m not familiar with, there’s no better way to learn the lingo than from Sales.

These are some really great questions. The one thing I would add is, these questions are great for a potential client that has contacted you FIRST!

If you are prospecting and cold calling then the potential client won’t likely be as patient.

More than likely they’ll still be trying to figure out what you want, and why you are calling them on their cell phone while they’re driving!?! (even though their contact number on their website is indeed their cell phone)

These are excellent questions. For me, the most obvious thing that’s missing though is there’s really little or nothing about who the customers actually are. Whenever I get a brand new client I usually like to spend a small amount of time just building a mental picture of a “typical customer”.. age, gender, lifestyle, relationship status, hobbies and interests, how much they work, cultural background. This always takes a bit of probing because without fail the first thing every client says is “oh, we don’t have a typical customer”. But you press a bit and you find some broad trends emerge. For clients that have a shopfront or otherwise deal with their customers in person, one question I like to ask is what kind of cars the customers are showing up in. Left to our own devices, good copywriters can often have a reasonable intuition about who we’re writing to, but as much as possible I like to base this on actual observations rather than raw assumption.

This discussion doesn’t have to go on all day.. just 3 or 4 minutes can be very worthwhile. When I was copywriting full time at an agency I often didn’t get the chance to have this chat, and I really felt the lack of it in my work.

All up though, great list.. I’m gonna pilfer a couple of these Qs for myself :p 🙂

Super useful post! I’ve just discovered your blog and have found so much interesting and useful info, so thanks a lot.

I ask some of these questions already but there’s other I hadn’t come up with and will be adding to my interview process asap. It definitely shows when you haven’t done your proper research. Most of my clients are small, very new business and most of the times I end up having to research the answer to these questions by myself because they haven’t even thought about it themselves.

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